


Sorrow Has Left Me Here

by sapphicwonder



Series: DA:I One-Shots and Shorts [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Bittersweet Ending, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Trevelyan (Dragon Age) has Sibling(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 17:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22499935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicwonder/pseuds/sapphicwonder
Summary: Myra didn't want to go to the Conclave in the first place, but it was the first chance she'd had in years to see her brother. Estranged from her family and alone, she comes face to face with a friend from her childhood that she hasn't thought about -- that's a lie -- in years, someone who can still make her heart stop but she's horribly angry with.----
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast
Series: DA:I One-Shots and Shorts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1439269
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Sorrow Has Left Me Here

Myra, born _Myranna Loretta Adelaisa Rose Trevelyan,_ never thought for a thousand ages that she’d see Cassandra Pentaghast again. She was gone, a _Seeker,_ and they’d probably never cross paths. And then she was named Right-Hand of the Divine — _when news of that reached Ostwick, ugh, the uproar it caused at the Trevelyan Estate_ — it just wasn’t likely they’d ever see each other again, with Myra being pushed to join the Templars every day and resisting, instead choosing to become a Chantry guard.

It was unlikely they would see each other again, she reasoned every time her heart clenched when news of her spread to them. Not after Anthony was killed in their youth and Cassandra threw herself into training, saying it was her calling. 

But now, here she is, looking up at her childhood friend and trying to hide the fact that she’s afraid. That she doesn’t know Seeker Pentaghast, whoever she is — this is not the sweet girl she rode horses with in her youth, not the girl who climbed trees with her and Brandon.

_ Brandon. **Brandon!** _

“Cassandra,” She rasps, heedless of the dryness in her throat, “Where is Brandon? Where is my brother?”

Her former best-friend in the whole world looks away. Myra’s breath is taken away momentarily, amazed by the woman the little future dragon slayer turned out to be.

Hesitance does not look good on her old friend, and it only serves to make her rather nervous. “I... I do not know, Myranna.”

She grimaces. “Please, Myra is fine.”

Cassandra raises a brow while she kneels to remove the restraints, hauling the woman to her feet. “You’ve never had a problem with it.”

Myra looks away, thinking of her mother’s lectures and strappings and her fathers stern voice.

“Things change, Cassandra.” People change.

The woman she knows now as Leliana watches curiously from the door, careful eyes unpacking every layer of this she can see.

“Go, Leliana,” Cassandra urges, eyes still on Myra, lingering on her injuries. “I will show her the Breach.”

The hooded woman nods once before fleeing with the shadows, and the two women are left alone. Myra looks anywhere except Cassandra, and Cassandra takes in every detail of Myra before clearing her throat.

“Well, then,” she says, and her voice hitches, like the world rests on her shoulders and she is afraid the faintest whisper will cause it to come crumbling down, “There is much to do.”

* * *

It is days after she has attempted to close the Breach that Cassandra and her speak one-on-one again.

They had a pleasant exchange of conversation while Myra exhausted herself with a practice dummy, in an effort not to think of her brother, and the consequent disowning she was likely to receive from her family. That was inevitable -- Brandon simply helped her evade it, though Maker knows why. Without him here...  


Myra grunts and throws herself back into the drill, briefly catching the Seeker's attention. She frowns at that. It's still hard to imagine her friend, a Seeker. Even more, the Right Hand of the Divine...

They speak of small things and nothing, really, to avoid the space that their words want to fill up but are too afraid too. Everything is too fragile, right now; with the Breach, the mark, Divine Justinia's recent death, Brandon's recent death.

Talking about the past isn't on her to-do list when she has to find a way to cope with the present. And so, like the well-adjusted adults they are, they talk like they've never met. Like Myra is some soldier that Cassandra must give hope to. She snorts and slashes at the practice dummy, ignoring the twinge of pain in her wrist. She needs no talk of faith.

While on Cassandra’s path she found peace and solace in the Seeker Order, Myra only knows grief. It is her lover, the time of mourning, and it will be staying until she’s properly broken herself apart for it. She has none of the skills of her childhood friend, to simply cut it all off, to find peace in the Maker. All she has is her pain.

_ And whatever liquor she can find. _

“It will be difficult,” Cassandra was saying, “But it is the Divine’s will, and we must continue in this burdened time.”

The other woman didn’t notice the tight grip that Myra had on her sword, nor the clenched jaw.

“After all, it is our duty.”

The Trevelyan Noble had snapped. She remembers yelling at Cassandra. The red-hot anger nearly blinded her, washing over her very being like the relentless waves of the Waking Sea against the rocks. It prickled under her skin and made her tremble.

“Listen to me, Cassandra Pentaghast,” she had turned, eyes hard. The other woman had looked surprised. “This is no ones duty but yours. I did not ask for this. I take no pleasure from this. My brother is dead, and I’d—“ she cuts herself off, shoving the training sword in the practice dummy.

She turned away from her old friend, running a hand down her face tiredly. She’s only twenty-eight and yet she feels as if she’s been alive since the first age.

“Herald, I—“

Myra choked on a sob. “You cannot even call me by my name? Typical,” she muttered, her mind going back to when her letters simply stopped coming back. “Avoiding the problem.”

The woman behind her had tried to touch her shaking shoulder, but the minute her gauntleted hand set down Myra hissed, _“Don’t touch me!”_ and the woman drew her hand back quickly, as though she'd been burned by something she anticipated to be cool, or perhaps like she had tried to pet a mouser cat and was not rewarded for her effort.  


“I want to be left _alone,_ Seeker Pentaghast,” she remembers spitting. “Can you handle that?” And without waiting for a reply, she walked away.

The soft crunching of snow under her boots is comforting. Myra bites her lip and looks up at the sky. 

_ How am I supposed to do this without you? _

_ I miss you.  _

_ You’re the perfect one, not me. _

She walked aimlessly, finding herself in the forest with her arms wrapped around herself. The woods were still, almost like the forest felt her sorrow and it joined her in mourning for the only person in her family who believed in her. 

_ Who loved her. _

Looking up, she found a tree with a low hanging branch and shakily swung up, scrambling higher and higher until she felt far away from everything. She buries her head in her knees. She feels the wind shake the leaves of the tree. 

She remembers climbing trees with Brandon, standing stock still when their mother would yell at them for dirtying their ‘good clothes’ before dissolving into nervous, adrenaline filled giggles when she left. Eventually she caved and gave them play clothes, relenting for her son’s puppy eyes, glaring daggers at her daughter for influencing _that type of behavior._ The stubbornness of a woman with standards too high — refusing to admit that even perfect children enjoy playing, and blaming it on her less-than-perfect child.

She remembers scraping her knees more times than she can count, sniffling on the ground. A kind smile and warm eyes, gentle hands cleaning and bandaging it for her before wrapping her in a hug.

_ “You’re my favorite little sister,” _ he’d say fondly, eyes always shining with kindness that she’s sure he didn’t inherit from Mother or Father.

She’d laugh and reply,  _ “I’m your only little sister, silly!” _

And then he'd smile and ruffle her shoulder length hair, causing her to giggle.  _ “That just means you’re my only favorite!” _

The tears fall fast and hot and she sobs into her knees, heart aching and chest heaving with the effort. She clenches her jaw in an attempt to stop crying, but to no avail. 

_ Why did it have to be him? _

She remembers when they were eleven and mother had caught her holding hands with a servants daughter, giggling and blushing. She had gotten the _worst_ lecture for that one...

* * *

Brandon heard the muffled lecture from his spot outside the door. He frowns deeply as as he listens to their mother scold Myra.  


_ “I won’t have you ruin him with your treacherous ways, Myranna.” Her cold voice cut through the silence. _

_ “But,  _ Mother—“

_ “No ‘ _ but’s!  _ He has potential, unlike you. My  _ problem,” _ the words are said with such disgust that Brandon was tempted to open the door and set Mother straight himself, but something held him back. Fear, of losing her affection, of gaining her wrath, of only endangering Myra, roots him in place.  
_

_ “Yes, Mother.” _

_ “Good. Out of my study, now. Remember what I told you.” _

_ “Yes, Mother.”  _

The door flies open and as soon as it’s safely shut again his sister takes off down the hallway.

“Myranna!” He whisper-yells. “Myra, _wait!”_

If she heard him, she doesn’t give any indication. She keeps going until she’s in her room, up against the wall in the furthest corner with her knees drawn to her chest.

He knocked softly in their secret pattern -- two knocks to the outside right, one knock down, one knock up -- before coming in and shutting the door. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. 

Her face is streaked with tears and blotchy. There's a cut, barely bleeding, split through her eyebrow and skin. 

He walks over and sits next to her, put a protective. arm around her. “Let it out.” he says gently. 

And so she does. She sobs against him, body quaking with the effort and gasping for breath. He only tightens his arm around her.

“What happened?” He asked when she calmed down a bit, each breath hitched but no longer sobbing.

“I— it doesn’t matter now,” she muttered, the servants daughter’s face clear in her mind. “Mother... just thinks I’m a bad influence on you.”

Brandon frowns. “You’re my sister, you’re not a bad influence on me.” 

Myra doesn’t reply, sniffling.

“You know what?” She looks up at him. “It doesn’t matter what she says. As long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.” 

She smiles at that. “I love you, Brandon. You’re my favorite brother.”

“I love you too. You’re my favorite sister.” 

They dissolved into quiet giggles.

* * *

“As long as we’re together...” she murmurs. “How can I go on without you?” 

She asks the forest, but it does not answer. It can give her none, cannot hold her in her grief. It can only give her memories of things long past; of sap sticking to small fingers and racing to the tippity-tops and scratches on elbows and knees and hands.

“It should’ve been me...” She sniffles, and then coughs. “It should’ve been me, Andraste’s fucking ass!” She cries, slamming her hand onto the hard bark of the tree. “You were the perfect one! You had all the answers!”

“I don’t want to be here if it’s without you.” She takes a deep breath. If she focuses really hard, the warm summer air of Ostwick blows through the trees around her. Cassandra, Brandon and her are sitting in the trees together again, wanting as much time playing as they can get, and she isn’t here in a world where her brother is dead and her best-friend is always feet away from her but just out of reach.

The wind blows softly, a warmth surrounding her that shouldn’t be there in the cold of the Frostbacks. In her ear, she thinks she hears a whisper of his former self.

_ You’re my favorite little sister.  _

And the little girl who feels too small in the big world she’s been thrust into — _who misses her big brother_ — begins to sob anew.

* * *

It’s nearly dark when Cassandra finds her, tear tracks dried onto her face and staring into the last dregs of sunset disappearing through the trees. Surprisingly, the woman is no longer wearing armor.

Even more surprisingly, she pulls herself up into the tree with her, fidgeting for a few moments to find a comfortable position.

“Why are you here?”

Myra winces at how her voice sounds, it’s scratchy and hoarse and grinds against the dryness in her throat.

“We could not have the Herald of Andraste running off on us, could we?”

It takes a moment to register that Cassandra is making a joke, and it startles a laugh out of her.

“Never thought I’d hear you make a joke again,” she says with a faraway tone.

The other woman is reminded of their previous conversation and goes quiet. “Myranna...”

“Myra.” Her head snaps to the Nevarran woman. “Call me Myra, Cassandra.”

_“Myra,”_ She repeats, almost as if she is testing the shortened name on her tongue. “I am sorry.”

_ Oh. _

“I...” She looks down. “It’s alright, Cass.”

Cassandra shakes her head. “It isn’t. I apologize, I should not have made you feel as if—“ the woman looks frustrated.

“I understand what you’re trying to say,” Myra says gently, knowing she has no easy time with words and even with all this time between them, even with all that history, she cannot bring herself to be bitter, to force Cassandra out of her comfort zone.  


They’re quiet for a few moments, not comfortable but not quite uncomfortable. Some in between where two people who know the past are trying to learn the future.

Suddenly, the other woman’s eyebrows furrow, leaning closer to look at Myra’s face.

Her hand, Myra notices now, has no gloves or gauntlets and it’s reaching up to touch right above her eye—

But she pulls it away at the last second, seemingly realizing that it might be crossing a line. If only Cassandra knew that Myra wished she still had the other woman to lean on. That when the letters stopped coming back she was heartbroken.

Myra shakes her head, realizing it took too long to respond. “It was... after. The white scar on my eyebrow?"  


The _you left_ is unspoken, but both women can hear it loudly, echoing in the silence and the empty space that’s been left in both women since their childhood.

Cassandra doesn’t seem to catch on to her avoidance, staring intently, trying to solve it as if it’s a puzzle. Myra sighs.

“It was my mother,” she mutters, looking out at the near-dark sky.

“Your mother?!” Cassandra’s eyebrows raise into her forehead. “But... she—“

“She loved Brandon.” Myra says flatly, turning back to look at Cassandra in the eye. “There are many things you never saw.” 

Subconsciously, she rubs her fingers in memory of when her mother caned them for taking a piece of candy that was _only in the bowl for decoration._

“That one was caused by her ring."

Cassandra looks torn between ordering her former friend to strip right there in the forest so she may inspect for more matriarchal-induced scars and crying on the spot, something she knows Cassandra does not do often.

Myra isn’t sure which she should hope for more — because she’s not sure she can deal with a crying Cassandra — but she also wouldn’t want to take her chances of the other woman actually ordering her to strip down in the middle of the Frostbacks.

But the warrior does neither. She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and reopening them before settling on something in the distance. “I am sorry.”

Myra stares, bewildered. “What in the Maker’s name are you apologizing for?”

Not even pausing at the blasphemous use of the Maker, she sighs. “For many things, my friend,” she closes her eyes again. “For many things.”

_Me too, Cass._

_ Me too. _

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't all I have for Myra/Cass, I have a Myra story in the works and small short-stories will be posted about her life. But backstory never hurts! Angst. Also, there's another user that has very similar backstory stuff as I do -- which I realized months ago when they (I'm not sure of their pronouns or their url at the moment!!) uploaded their Trevelyan/Cassandra story. But fear not!! My friend and I have a shared timeline and all of this has come from that, and for over a year! I was actually thrilled to see someone with a similar backstory for their character. I'll actually link that fic because it's super good and I've loved reading it.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195669  
> Here it is!


End file.
